As TLT readers know, one of my biggest complaints about school food is the prevalence of what I call “doctored junk food” — pizza, corn dogs, burgers and Frito Pie (a staple here in Texas) that may be tweaked nutritionally but which still teach kids that it’s OK to eat those foods on a daily basis (see, “Should Children’s Palates Drive the Lunch Menu?). I also dislike the fact that two choices are offered each day and at least one is invariably the “junk food” item, making it that much harder to achieve student acceptance of anything new and healthier (see, “My Op-Ed in the Houston Chronicle – Improving School Food Is Only Half the Battle“).
It was entirely different back when I was an elementary student in the 70’s. Forget the pizza and nuggets. [Adopt cranky old lady voice here.] We were eating things like meat loaf and peas-and-carrots and mashed potatoes — and we liked it, too!
Right? Well, maybe not . . .
A few weeks ago my husband was going through his old school papers and unearthed a school lunch menu from 1974, when he was in third grade at a local Houston elementary school. Here it is (click on it to see an enlarged version):
Turns out, with the exception of a few days out of the month, most of the food is the very same stuff we see today: pizza, tacos, burgers and the rest.
What is notable, though, is that each day there is a fresh vegetable of some sort (although it looks like iceberg lettuce often filled the bill) and that there was only one choice offered to students. (I wonder if having only one option meant that acceptance of the “beef cutlet” or the mysterious “seafood pattie” was more likely, or if participation simply dropped on those days?) It’s also pretty amazing to see that lunch, plus milk, cost a mere 56 cents.
While my husband and I didn’t grow up in the same state (I was in Arizona at the time), there’s no reason to think that my elementary school menu was much different. Finding his old menu was a good reminder to me that memory can play tricks on the best of us.
What are your memories of school food “back in the day,”and how do you think school food has changed since then?
[Ed. Update: This post led to a discussion of the mysterious “Perfection Salad” that appears on the menu — check it out here, and even more retro-Jello-fun here.]
Dr. Susan Rubin says
I’m wondering how much soda and junk was in the schools in 1974. I’m sure you’ve watched King Corn, so you know that it was the Nixon administration’s head of the USDA, Earl Butz who turned things around for corn and ultimately made HFCS cheaper than sugar.
Back in the 70’s those cows were likely eating grass, not corn and soy. Therefore, that ‘beef cutlet’ might have been significantly healthier.
I, for one, was old enough to be in school in the mid ’70’s. I can personally attest that there were NO candy machines or soda machines in my school! No sugary rewards in classrooms- I would have remembered them for sure as I was quite the sugar junkie back in my teen years!
bettina elias siegel says
Susan: Your point about sugary rewards is so right-on. Just on Saturday, my daughter was offered candy bars for good performance in a local singing class, Hershey’s kisses for giving the right answers in Junior Congregation at our synagogue, and then more candy for going up to the bima after services. All that before noon!
Jessica Williams says
True, the only time we got candy was in our grab bag on Valentines Day! And that depended on who brought you one. They didn’t force us to bring for the whole class, so if you were a loner (like me), you got about 3 Dum Dum Pops total, lol!
Louise Goldberg says
I am having a chuckle at Dr. Rubin’s last sentence–I simply cannot picture her being a sugar junkie!
So, as someone who was in elementary/middle school in the early-mid 80’s, I can remember a snack bar that sold candy and chips just outside the cafeteria AND a BlueBell ice cream refrigerated case inside the cafeteria. The line for school lunchtrays was ridiculously short. The food was also pretty unappetizing…a SCOOP of spaghetti/meat sauce that was overcooked, a rectangle of ‘pizza on cardboard crust with specks of ‘meat'(?), and a breaded fish (?) pattie, don’t remember any fresh fruits or veg anywhere but maybe my memory also fails me…I hope so. My parents packed my lunch every dang day. Because my grandmother was a dietitian and imparted her beliefs onto my mother, my lunches were filled with hideous (from a kid’s perspective) green pepper slices and peanut butter sandwiches on the brownest hardest bread you’ve ever seen-with a leaf of lettuce on them, yes I said lettuce on PB sandwich! (Mom thought the extra crunch was delish). I was mortified as a child because my lunch was so different than my classmates and so jealous of the garbage they were eating!
bettina elias siegel says
Louise: We must start a support group for those of us who were forced to bring the uber-healthy lunch to school! (Sorry, Mom!). I, too, had the rock-hard, brown (“wheat berry”) bread that no one would dream of trading for. All I wanted was bologna on white and a Twinkie like everyone else! 🙂 – Bettina
Kim says
I grew up in Chicago and Phoenix during the 70s. The education in Phoenix was horrendous, but the food was much better and healthier than what we had in Chicago. I think our Chicago schools were always experimenting with new food making systems and we were the guinea pigs. In Phoenix, the cafeteria workers were parents, and they would actually TELL us “You need more green beans!” or “Here honey, take two tacos… your’e skinny”. Then she’d give you the “Mom eye” to make sure you ate what she said. I learned my love/obsession of canned Mandarin oranges here in Phoenix. Those things are so awesome.
bettina elias siegel says
Kim: I sort of remember moms behind the lunch line, too, although maybe I’m misremembering (I’ve proven here that my memory is totally unreliable.) But it makes me wish that the “lunch ladies” at my kids’ school took more of an interest in what the kids are putting on their trays, pushing the veggies or talking up something new. Then again, these poor workers have had their hours and benefits drastically cut, and their main job (cooking) taken away from them (in favor of reheating only), so I guess that’s a lot to expect of them. – Bettina
Charles Kuffner says
I can remember my first trip to the school cafeteria as a 1st grader in 1972 (small Catholic school in New York) and asking my parents that afternoon if I could get the school lunch from then on because they had ravioli that day. (Which I’m sure was Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, but that would have been just fine to my six-year-old self.) I remember lots of hot dogs, baked beans (canned, I’m sure), salisbury steak (i.e., a hamburger patty with gravy on it), Jell-O, milk to drink, and so on. In other words, not exactly the picture of healthy eating. I don’t recall it being any different when I changed to a public middle school (in New York, we called it an “intermediate school” – I.S. 61, to be precise) in the sixth grade. In high school, we were allowed to go off campus to eat lunch (this meant lots of Blimpie’s subs and slices of pizza for me), which was just as well because the cafeteria food wasn’t as good as it was at my previous schools, both in terms of taste and quality. So yeah, things were definitely not better in the good old days.
bettina elias siegel says
OMG, Charles. You just brought back the most powerful, long-buried sensory memory of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee ravioli. That super-sweet sauce, the oddly gritty cheese filling in that extra-firm pasta (I guess to keep it from disintegrating in the can.) I’m both repelled and strangely tempted to buy a can when I grocery shop later today! 🙂 – Bettina
Renee says
In grade school I lived close enough to school, and we had a long enough lunch period, that I walked home and back every day for lunch (late 60’s, early 70’s). Thinking about this now amazes me. My parents still live in the same house I grew up in, so I know that walk is about 15 minutes. So I walked back and forth 4 times a day (good exercise!) and got a home cooked meal –although it was often Campbell’s soup with a sandwich, or spaghettios from a can. Still, those foods might have been healthier way back then.
But we must have had an hour break for lunch if I could do that, huh? Amazing! And my daughter currently gets about 15 minutes total for lunch –including getting it from her locker and cleaning up.
bettina elias siegel says
Renee: I, too, remember being able to just walk off campus to eat lunch at the home of a friend who lived near school. Mind boggling now, isn’t it?
Viki says
Late 60’s in grade school I can remember home made rolls and the smell of them through the school getting stronger the closer to the lunchroom you got.
The pizza was made on those HUGE pans and I always was glad it I got an edge piece. The spaghetti sauce was made in the kitchen there too, we saw it later in the week when they added spices and beans to make the chili(unfortunately they added the noodles as well). I can remember Veg. soup. Probably made with left over veggies that were frozen.
I can remember menus like the one your husband found, if I didn’t like what was being served on certain days, I’d take my lunch. My lunch box was a metal one with a thermos, left over from my brother…Bonanza. If I still had it, I’d probably sell it.
Don’t you think that the butter listed on the menu above is probably REAL butter! Yea Butter!
Gretchen says
How amazing that this was lying around and you found it! I, for one, am most intrigued by “perfection salad”…
bettina elias siegel says
I know! What on earth could that be? I’m off to Google it and will report back.
bettina elias siegel says
tune in tomorrow . . .
Christina @ Spoonfed says
I think SuRu is right: The menu items now and then might look similar, but I’d bet good money that the ingredients in 1974 were a whole lot different (i.e., recognizable). Plus kids simply weren’t inundated with crap at every turn, like they are now, so treats really were treats.
I actually have very little recollection of school lunches, though I’m sure I ate them, as my parents both worked shift jobs and I don’t remember bringing lunch. I keep meaning to ask my parents, though. Will have to do that!
Spoonfed: Raising kids to think about the food they eat
Barry in Phoenix, Az says
The very early part of my education was going to school on a military base in the US as well as in Thailand and Vietnam. So I’m not sure how my food compared to regular public school. In 8th grade was when I attended my first public school. I remember a variety of eating at school and getting lunch packed from home. Don’t remember acutally loving or hating the food in elementary schools. Just seemed like food. But what is surprising is, if the food was that unhealthy, why aren’t MORE of the adults from that generation overweight or obese? Seems like what ever we ate was offset by walking to and from school, recess, PE 5 days a week, afterschool playgrounds till dark, sports programs, Boyscouts and Girlscounts and parents who were responsible for what THIER own children ate.
Yes, some parents were the extremist (PB on brown bread with lettuce?), but many packed lunches were simple sandwiches, chips, maybe an apple or so?
My point is that it is NOT simple the foods that are being eaten at schools, but it is the lack of recess, PE, nutrition education (you remember the 4 food groups, but can you dicepeher the food pyramid?) and TOO much couch time, TV time, and lack of parent participation. Just my opionion. Oh, BTW, I spent 16 years as a large district Food Service Director.
bettina elias siegel says
Barry – It’s absolutely true that there are many factors contributing to childhood obesity and school food is just one of them. In fact, the reimbursable federal meal, at least at the elementary level, is really not that bad in my district. It’s the “a la carte” items and the middle and high school menus that I most object to these days. And of course, as you point out, there’s the whole issue of physical activity (or lack thereof) and parental oversight. Thanks for commenting here – I’m always so happy to get the input of people who are currently working or have worked in school food services. – Bettina
Bill says
I could be wrong, but I think it was about the 70s when processed foods started really taking off. Not a surprise prepackaged, pre-formed foods were making their appearance in school system cafeterias.
Seems, if memory serves, that just about everything being dished up by the nice (cranky) laddies dressed in all white uniforms (not unlike nurses) was obviously from a can or box and simply heated in big vats or off a grill. Sloppy Joes come to mind.
And yet the thing that seemed most unappealing to me that I can recall was being able to see back into the kitchen at my high school. All those industrial sized pots and pans, and shockingly large boxes and cans just made it seem so impersonal and, well…institutional. And wasn’t there always a lingering odor of sour milk competing with the reek of cleaning fluids in the air? Yummy.
I guess before cafeterias were incorporated into the public school system, kids bought their own lunches. The problem with that being, some kids didn’t have any to bring. Hence…
bettina elias siegel says
“lingering odor of sour milk competing with the reek of cleaning fluids in the air” – totally! Another sensory memory I’d long buried!
Maggie says
(I apologize – it is long)
Lunch from the past…hmm…two perspectives here.
Growing up (in school from mid ’60s to late ’70s) – if you lived on a farm (I did) you ate at school. If you lived in “town” (population 200) you walked home for lunch. Items I recall (some I remember because I liked them, others because I didn’t ) – hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes, rice with cinnamon, egg salad sandwiches, creamed tuna over biscuits, fish sticks, Bar-b-q on bun. I don’t think we thought a lot about what we were being served. It was food, you were expected to eat it. We were hungry and we did! The lunch ladies (two) were employees of the school, but did happen to be the moms of students at the school.
Changes since I started working in school food service (started in mid ’80s). As far as food – when I started we did do scratch baking. We made bread and dessert items. We made pizza crusts from scratch and shredded the cheese from large blocks. The turkey for turkey in gravy was whole turkeys, which we roasted and pulled off the bone (now, neted roasts). Cooked ground beef from raw, now is pre-cooked crumbles.
We’ve probably gained some good things and lost some others. Pretty much no desserts now. But, it would be nice to be making bread from scratch! We use more fresh vegetables and fruits now. Some things are…hmm…semi scratch? Spaghetti sauce made from canned tomato products and spices, for example.
Here’s another detail – when I started, we were serving 300 students. We did not serve breakfast. Now, with the same number of labor hours – we are serving 500 students and serving breakfast to about 80.
I had to smile at the mention that food service workers have seen their benefits cut. *wry smile* Cut? We’ve likely never had them in the first place. Getting “good” people into the job is a challenge. How many people can afford to take a job that you can’t make a living wage at, can afford to take a job with random un-paid breaks during the school year? It’s a hard sell. Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do, but if I had needed to make a living wage, I would have needed to stay in the restaurant world.
bettina elias siegel says
There’s so much of interest here, Maggie– your memories and your experience as a food service worker. But the thing that really jumped out at me was “rice with cinnamon.” It sounds so Moroccan or Middle Eastern among otherwise standard fare like egg salad and fish sticks! What gives?
Maggie says
Not really exotic at all. More like white rice, with cream, with a dash of cinnamon on the top…maybe a rice pudding? It’s one of the things I remember because I didn’t like it – because I didn’t care for the cinnamon.
bettina elias siegel says
Oh, rice pudding! Well, that totally fits. I was imagining some savory, cinnamon-and-cumin-scented pilaf or something, which just wasn’t computing with the rest of the menu. 🙂
Donna says
Ah, yes, fish sticks and sloppy joes. We had some Italian women behind the lunch line who were jovial, yet kept an eye on what you put on your tray. There wasn’t any whole wheat or low fat cheese on the menu, but we didn’t eat that at home, either. Still, I’d guess that the food was less processed and less chemical-laden.
jenna Food w/ Kid Appeal says
buttered veggies on school menu? huzzah for real fat for kids way back when…. bettina, agree with your observation that only one item was served increased acceptability. the ‘taste off” competition we did at Sherwood E (SBISD) proves that! When the only thing offered is healthy, kids accept it, eat it and often discover they like it. 82% of kids tasted 9 of 9 fruits/vegetables served. Many classes had perfect tasting averages. No hot sandwiches, pizza or chocolate milk to distract taste buds. http://tinyurl.com/4ugmwg8
Maggie says
I missed the “buttered vegetables” before. Yes, likely real butter. I do recall we were receiving commodity butter into the early 90s at least. In an earlier meal pattern (mid- 60s I think – the “Type A” meal), 2 teaspoons of butter or margarine per day per child was part of the standard. As was whole milk.
Tasting article was interesting. I am glad that you mentioned that while food service professionals can take away information, sadly, you are also right that regulations don’t allow us to offer only tastings of fruits and vegetables – we have to serve an entire meal. And we pretty much lack most of the other unique aspects of the tasting. Still, I would hope that after such an event, if a child saw the item at lunch, they would recall that they liked it, and take it again.
I do wonder a bit about the background thought process of the idea of “they’ll eat it if it’s the only thing there”. Do we make an assumption about the students? If they are coming from a home with out food, they’ll be hungry and they’ll eat it. On the other hand, students that will return home after school to a fully stocked cupboard just might decide not to eat what’s offered because…well, there’s a fully stocked cupboard at home and that student might still miss out on the nutritious meal.
It’s a fine line to walk sometimes – not catering to what we presume the students will consume, yet not going too far out so they simply choose not to participate. I’ve noticed the comment in a couple places recently that if the alternative is that school lunch wouldn’t be offered at all…maybe what we have is better than nothing?
jenna Food w/ Kid Appeal says
apologies maggie, i wasn’t clear in with my “they’ll eat it if it’s the only thing there” observation. i wasn’t suggesting kids be offered fruit and veggies only at lunch. kids need more than fruits and vegetables, they need fat and protein too. i was suggesting that they be offered only “wholesome” items at lunch.
what they don’t need is items fried in fake fats, dairy and fruit with added sugar, and excessive grain options (whole grains alone are not a balanced diet). it’s so hard for a child to take an entree salad when it’s up against papa john’s pizza day, even when they like salad, because they like pizza more.
imagine offering a child 2 bed times. one at the time that would give them the right amount of sleep for their age, and another an hour later than that. then tell the child, you choose. every night you get to pick your own bed time. how many kids would have the discretion and wisdom at age six or ten to get to bed at the earlier bed time on a regular basis with few exceptions? we shouldn’t ask kids to make choices they really aren’t mature enough to make.
when we put salad along side pizza and white milk along side chocolate milk, why do we think that young kids will make “healthy-er” choices just because they are available.
Sadly, I predict that many of the kids who already like vegetables or learned to like a new type of produce at the tasting still won’t take these items in the lunch line. They will grab a chocolate milk with pizza or hot sandwiches or corn dogs, leaving the cup of broccoli or baby carrots on the line. I
My experiment showed that kids do eat and like vegetables, but it didn’t show that they’d gobble these same items up, when more desirable choices were available. i do think a few more kids will pick up these items from the line now, but i suspect that a lot of it will go in the trash uneaten. after guzzling choc milk and having a slice or two of pizza most elementary kids are satiated and won’t want to munch a side salad.
Maggie says
Jenna, I understand what you are saying. Thank you for the opportunity to “talk”.
I feel like I need to have a bit of a split personality when I am discussing school meals. There is the part of me that understands the many different ways we can improve school meals. I’ve got a few thoughts of my own too. Then, there’s the part of me that works for the meal program, deals with the reality. I wish that I had the magic that could make all the changes happen…but I don’t.
I understand what you are saying about children perhaps not being able to make the choices they should. But, still, my question is the balance. We can assume, as I mentioned before, that we might have a population that is so hungry that they will eat what is presented. Will that theory work with the students who are used to making their own choices outside of school? Will they simply choose to bring a meal from home? Food is such a very personal subject with so many different thoughts about the “right” foods. Will the majority parents look at the menu and be thankful for the choices offered? Can school food service be the place to start to make those changes to society? I’m not sure it can be expected with the current structure. Or where else do we start to take apart all the inter-related topics?
School food service has been put in the position of being self supporting. I mentioned walking that fine line. Serving the “right” food and making a go of it financially. I wish budget had nothing do to with it…I really do. If the students don’t purchase school meals, the department doesn’t get funding. I hate to have to think about it. I know that mentioning funding and budget makes it sound like that is all I’m concerned about…it’s not, but it does have to be one of the things we (the food service department) are concerned about. I’m not sure who is going to come to the rescue if we fail financially, even as we succeed nutritionally.
Dana Woldow says
I have hesitated to jump in here because it seems clear to me that, having started school in the mid fifties, I may be the oldest one here. Maybe, as my kids say, no one cares about what went on back when we rode our dinosaurs to school.
But in terms of whether the food was processed convenience food way back when, my memories of the school cafeteria include canned ravioli, fish sticks on Friday, hot dogs with B&M baked beans (or alternately the dreaded sauerkraut which made the whole school stink), and I even remember the day when the principal came into the caf to announce that the next day we were going to have a “new” dish – beefaroni! – made by the same company that made our ravioli (that would be Chef Boy-ar-dee.)
None of those lunches were scratch cooked; all of them were what we now call processed convenience foods. Maybe they had less additive or chemicals or dyes in them, I don’t know (but remember this was the era of “Better living through chemistry!”)
Em says
No vegetarian options at all, I see.
I actually confess to having liked my school’s chicken a la king a lot, back in the day. That and the pizza were the 2 things I was willing to forego a sack lunch in favor of.
I had the uber-healthy lunches too– it was the ‘7os after all– but was lucky enough to have a mom who baked her own bread and treats. God knows where she found the time, with working full time and raising me.
Kim says
Apologies for delayed commenting here. I entered kindergarten in 1961 and graduated from high school in 1974. I may have brought lunch from home a handful of times during all those years but I ate school lunch nearly every school day for 12 yrs. (the norm was lunch at home during half-day kindergarten).
This is a link to the current menus for the district where I attended school. They bear little resemblance to the menus from my childhood: http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/foodservice/Lev2.cfm?Lev2ID=16 Frankly, I’m shocked and a little ashamed of how this district is feeding its students today. Like so many other districts, they have lost their way in my opinion.
I recall on-site scratch cooking in each school I attended start to finish. The lunch ladies were in the kitchen prepping, baking, and cooking when we arrived in the morning and we smelled those aromas all morning during class. I even remember the smell of raw onions coming in from morning recess when we walked by the kitchen door during my elementary years. During the afternoon, the ladies clad in pink dresses and hair nets cleaned up while we were in class. In elementary school (K thru 6), they wheeled around a cart of milk (whole plain milk only) to our classrooms when they were finished. We could buy a carton for a penny and that was our afternoon snack. EVERY kid drank white whole milk. The teacher kept some spare pennies in her desk drawer in case there was a kid who didn’t have a penny for afternoon milk.
Even in high school, we weren’t offered a wide variety of options which seems to be the custom today. Beyond the 35-cent hot lunch, I think there was one other main dish option, typically a hamburger or sandwich, but not much else. The hot lunch always included at least one vegetable and often there was a choice of two. Fruit was always included as well. There were a couple of extras you could buy, maybe a cookie, fruit, or slice of cake, but there wasn’t the barrage of choices offered today. There were no vending machines. I don’t recall soda being offered but there was juice in addition to milk. By high school, we were offered low fat milk in addition to whole but I don’t recall flavored milk ever being offered.
I understand the logic behind offering lots of choices (increased participation) but sometimes I think it serves to undermine the overall nutritional quality of school lunch. There has to be a smart compromise. The devil is in the details.
jackie says
Does anybody remember the “cheese puffs”
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Like Cheetos? Or something different?
leanne says
I remember them but I cannot find a recipe anywhere. They were like a tennis ball, soft on the outside and when you cut them open a melted cheesy lovely stuff came out! We had them at school with mash and tinned spagetti
Phil Payne says
Surreal doesn’t begin to cover stumbling onto this column and that photo. As a child attending Ed White elementary from 1970 to 1976, it goes without saying – that very menu was taped on the inside of our pantry door. So were all of them for those years. No two ways about it, I ate every one of those meals. It’s official: I feel old today. 😉
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Phil: I read your comment out loud to my husband – we both got such a kick out of it! 🙂